1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to an imaging apparatus able to form an image of a subject on an image sensor, and from the imaging data output from that image sensor save, to a storage medium, image data to be displayed on a display screen.
2. Description of Related Art
In digital cameras widely available today, a color filter is disposed in front of a one-chip image sensor for imaging, in which respective filters for the three primary colors red (R), green (G), and blue (B) are arranged in an order called a Bayer arrangement, for example, and with the cameras being configured such that an image of a subject given by a lens system is formed on the one-chip image sensor via the color filter.
Additionally, such digital cameras are configured to be able to generate image data for display on a display screen and image data to be saved to a storage medium from the respective R, G, and B imaging data output from the one-chip image sensor, or in other words the respective R, G, and B imaging data output in a given order such as the Bayer arrangement.
Meanwhile, as discussed above, configurations that dispose the color filter in front of the one-chip image sensor are widely prevalent in digital cameras today. For this reason, the handling of respective R, G, and B imaging data output in a given order such as the Bayer arrangement has been generalized in systems presuming such, even in signal processing systems which are disposed behind the one-chip image sensor and which receive the output of the one-chip image sensor to generate the display or other image data.
Other conventional technology besides the above is given by Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-89219 (PTL 1), for example, which discloses an imaging apparatus able to conduct imaging by appropriately selecting between a still image with high definition image quality and a motion image with standard image quality. In other words, this publication discloses technology in which, under control by a control system, an image signal for a motion image and an image signal for a still image are output from a single solid-state image sensor, the output is converted into a digital signal, and a standard image quality processing circuit is selected in the case where the imaged image is a motion image, while a high definition image quality processing circuit is selected in the case where the imaged image is a still image. This publication also discloses technology that converts and outputs a motion image signal supplied by selection into a standard image quality signal with the standard image quality processing circuit, and converts and outputs a still image signal supplied by selection into a high definition image quality signal with the high definition image quality processing circuit.
Another conventional technology is given by Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-341706 (PTL 2), for example, which discloses an image signal processing apparatus able to obtain three-CCD image sensor output with good precision from one-CCD image sensor output. In other words, this publication discloses technology which makes it possible to compute, by class separation adaptive processing, an image signal equivalent to the CCD image sensor output of a three-chip camera having respective R, G, and B color components for each pixel from the CCD image sensor output of a one-chip camera which outputs a signal in which each pixel is just one color from among the three primary colors R, G, and B.
Also, International Publication Brochure No. 06/039486 (PTL 3) discloses an imaging apparatus using a technique called “Light Field Photography”. This imaging apparatus is configured such that a microlens array is disposed at a focal plane given by an imaging lens, and an image sensor is additionally provided at the focal point of the microlens array. Thus, light rays from an object to be imaged are acquired as light vectors which retain information on not only the intensity distribution at the image sensor, but also the travel direction. For this reason, imaging data acquired at the image sensor includes information regarding parallax, and by performing given image processing, it becomes possible to apply the data to 3D display and distance information extraction, for example.